Great teachers: attracting, training and retaining the best - Education Committee Contents

2 The impact and definition of outstanding
teaching

The impact of the best teachers

22. It is a commonplace that everyone remembers their
best teacher; indeed, similar slogans have been used frequently
in the media, in teaching awards ceremonies, in personal memoirs,
and in Government advertising campaigns. However, the profound
and real impact which the best teachers have is less widely acknowledged.

23. There are of course many influences on a young
person's life, of which school is one of the most controllable.
To quote a recent Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
study: "the most important difference between the most and
the least effective classrooms is the teacher".[21]
Michael Barber and Mona Mourshed argue that "the evidence
that getting the right people to become teachers is critical to
high performance is both anecdotal and statistical", and
quote a South Korean policymaker explicitly stating that "the
quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its
teachers".[22] Traditionally
in the UK, emphasis has been put on the quality of schools, not
least through Ofsted judgments, but the inspectorate itself has
said that "the variability of the quality of teaching within
schools" is "a persistent issue", as well as the
more acknowledged variability between schools:[23]
the former is, arguably, the real issue to be addressed, given
the huge impact that individual teachers have on pupil performance.

24. More detailed studies have argued that that impact
of a good or outstanding teacher, compared with a mediocre or
poor one, is both tangible and dramatic. Research conducted by
the Centre for Market and Public Organisation, commissioned by
the Institute of Public Policy Research, and involving around
6,000 pupils and 300 teachers, found that "having an 'excellent'
teacher compared with a 'bad' one can mean an increase of more
than one GCSE grade per pupil per subject".[24]

25. A large study conducted by academics from Harvard
and Columbia defined 'high value-added (VA)' teachers as those
having the most positive impact on test scores, and discovered
that students taught by such teachers were more likely to participate
in further education, to attend better colleges, to earn higher
salaries, and to save more for retirement; they were also less
likely to have children as teenagers.[25]
In salary terms, specifically, the research estimates that "a
teacher who is in the top 5 percent [on the VA measure] [...]
generates about $250,000 or more of additional earnings for their
students over their lives in a single classroom of about 28 students"[26]in
essence, that one year of a brilliant teacher will increase their
students' earning potential during their adulthoods. Other reputable
research has produced similar findings: for example, Eric Hanushek
(senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University) estimates
from his studies that a year of a good teacher (as opposed to
an outstanding one) produces "an increase of $10,600 on each
student's lifetime earnings", and that "even a modestly
better than average teacher raises earnings by $5,300, compared
to what would otherwise be expected".[27]
Hanushek goes on to demonstrate that "there is a symmetry
to these calculations", and that a very weak teacher (on
the value-added definition) "will have a negative impact
of $400,000 [across a class of twenty's lifetime earnings] compared
to an average teacher".[28]

26. That impact has wider benefits than on the individual
student and his or her own progress and attainment, because of
the impact of higher salaries, savings and education on society
more broadlyso much so that, in Hanushek's own words, "the
estimated value almost loses any meaning".[29]
Nonetheless, he argues that if the United States closed the achievement
gap with Finland, the former's annual growth rate would increase
by 1% of GDP: "accumulated over the lifetime of somebody
born today, this [...] would amount to nothing less than an increase
in total U.S. economic output of $112 trillion in present value".[30]

27. These figures are, as Hanushek himself admits,
"subject to some uncertainty",[31]
yet the key findings appear to support the general assumption,
clear from the evidence we have taken from a wide range of adults
and young people, that outstanding teachers have a profound impact
on students' success, both at and after school, and that the recruitment
and retention of those most likely to be outstanding teachers
should therefore be firmly at the top of our education system's
agenda. We note the work of the Sutton Trust in attempting to
widen the UK research base in this field, through its current
study on improving the impact of teachers on pupil performance.[32]

Defining 'the best'

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

28. If we accept that teachers can have profound
and positive impacts as demonstrated in part by the research cited
above, it is then more important to establish the qualities which
the highest-performing teachers have in common with each other:
once those qualities are clear, it becomes easier to design recruitment,
training and retention policies aimed at the people who embody
them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, coming up with a decisive list of
qualities is a difficult and complex exercise: research has shown
that that matching factors such as degree class and teaching experience
with pupil performance is very difficult.[33]
However, given the profound effects which teachers, both good
and bad, can have on pupil performance, attempting the exercise
is important.

29. Ofsted, which is responsible for inspecting teacher
training provision as well as the quality of teaching in schools
and colleges, told us what its inspectors look for:

An outstanding teacher generally has exceptionally
strong subject knowledge and exceptionally good interactions with
students and children, which will enable them to demonstrate their
learning and build on their learning. They will challenge the
youngster to extend their thinking to go way beyond the normal
yes/no answer. They will be people who inspire, who develop a
strong sense of what students can do and have no limits in terms
of their expectations of students.[34]

30. Many of those qualities were also listed by the
young people we met in York, Rugby and London during the course
of our inquiry. They added others, including the ability to innovate
and make lessons engaging, and to keep discipline in the classroom.
Dr John Moss, Dean of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University,
argued that an interest in working with children, despite seeming
obvious, was not always forthcoming in candidates, though it was
clearly crucial.[35]

31. Dr Moss also praised the Teach First core competencies,
which he said offered a "very good list" of the key
personal attributes found in the best teachers.[36]
Teach First, which recruits high-performing graduates to train
on-the-job in challenging schools, assesses applicants in eight
areas alongside their formal academic criteria:

Other witnesses commended this list, and lent particular
support to the inclusion of resilience: Angela Milner, from Ofsted,
argued that this was "a very important characteristic"
of good classroom teachers as well as school leaders.[38]
The 2007 McKinsey study, How the world's best performing school
systems come out on top, suggests a shorter list of pre-identifiable
attributes used by leading countries to assess suitability for
teaching: "a high overall level of literacy and numeracy,
strong interpersonal and communication skills, a willingness to
learn and the motivation to teach".[39]

SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE AND ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

32. The Government has expressed a desire to "raise
the expectations of the academic achievement of trainees",[40]
and has pursued this by introducing a new bursary scheme for teacher
trainees, to take effect from 2012. Under that scheme, higher
levels of financial support will be awarded to trainees with higher
degree classes, or with degrees in particular 'priority' subjects.
The Schools Minister explained that trainees with lower class
degrees will not be excluded from applying for teacher training,
but that the bursary scheme is designed "to incentivise graduates"
with higher class degrees or in shortage subjects; other applicants
can still "apply for all the student loans to pay tuition
fees regardless of [their] degree class" (and provided they
have been accepted onto a course), but will not receive bursaries.[41]

33. The Government has said that the scheme "will
give flexibility in exceptional circumstances for trainees to
receive a higher bursary than their degree class would otherwise
allow", citing trainees who have gained "exceptional
subject knowledge" during a previous career, or who have
a doctorate.[44] The
scheme does not take into account the differences between the
academic demands or reputations of individual universities, just
that of individual trainees, although as witness Emma Knights
of the NGA pointed out to us:

We all know that in some cases a 2.2 from a particular
university is perhaps worth more academically, or should be possibly,
than 2.1 from somewhere else [...] if you have absolutely rigid
criteria, you can't take that into consideration.[45]

Ms Knights also suggested that the scheme could be
seen as implying that "primary was not as important as secondary",
because of the lower bursaries offered,[46]
but Michael Day of the Training and Development Agency explained
to the Committee that the levels are set purely because "it
is much easier [...] to recruit high quality people into primary
teaching than it is into the shortage subjects".[47]
Based on the general application figures, we accept that this
is the case.

34. We heard considerable debate around the level
of subject knowledge required by teachers, and how this equated
to both their academic background and their skill in the classroom.
Evidence from around the world suggests that degree class can
be a useful 'initial sieve', prior to teacher training, to ensure
that graduates have strong subject knowledge and solid academic
credentials. Moreover, setting a high academic bar sends a clear
signal that this is a difficult profession to enter, thus raising
its status. For example, South Korean teachers are generally
recruited from the top 5% of the graduate cohort, those in Finland
from the top 10%, and in Singapore and Hong Kong from the top
30%.[48] All four of
those countries are ranked significantly above the OECD average
for students' reading and mathematics, where the UK is around
the average for both.[49]

35. Despite the policies suggested by that international
evidence, witnesses to our inquirywhilst generally minded
that, in the words of one organisation, "the better qualified
the teaching profession is the more effective it will be"[50]were
sceptical that degree class equated to ability in the classroom.
Ofsted said it knew of "no firm evidence to support the view
that those with the highest degree classifications make the best
teachers", a statement supported by Keele University which
argued that "some the highest-quality teachers" it had
produced "have had degrees at 2.2 or lower".[51]
That opinion was backed up by teachers attending a private seminar
with the Committee to launch the inquiry, all of whom were outstanding
practitioners and several of whom had lower class degrees.[52]

36. Looking at the academic research, some studies
have suggested that strength of subject knowledgewhich,
as teachers speaking to us acknowledged, is very likely to have
been gained through a degreecan play a role in determining
a teacher's future abilities and impact. For example, the IPPR
cites a study of almost 3,000 students in 2005, which found that
"students taught by the most knowledgeable teachers (the
top 5 per cent) learned around 25 per cent faster than the student
taught by the least knowledgeable".[53]

37. Of course, no sensible person would suggest that
having a good degree automatically makes you a good teacher. Strong
subject knowledge is necessary but not sufficient, and this is
exactly the approach taken by the world's best-performing schools
systems, as identified by the OECD, McKinsey and Co., the Sutton
Trust and others. Similarly, though, it does not appear sensible
to suggest that the strong subject knowledge (and indeed other
qualities such as application, as Mary Bousted suggested to us)[54]
symbolised by a high degree class are irrelevant to teacher quality,
which is recognised by the DfE's new bursary proposals. Indeed,
we can argue the case no better than former 'Jamie's Dream School'
student Nana Kwame who, when asked in oral evidence to us whether
personality or subject knowledge mattered more in a teacher, replied:

You can't really pick between the two [...] the one
with no personality is [...] going to know what he's talking about,
but everyone's going to be bored of him, so they're not going
to listen. On the other hand, if that guy's got a good personality,
but don't have a clue what he's doing, we will not learn anything
[...][55]

38. However, the balance between depth and breadth
of subject knowledge required will naturally differ for different
phases of education. Secondary school students in York viewed
primary school teaching as harder than secondary, because so many
subjects have to be covered and because of the constant energy
required in lessons. Without placing comparative value on either
phase, Martin Thompsonpresident of the National Association
of School Based Teacher Trainersagreed that the qualities
required in a great teacher "might vary with the age of the
children they are going to teach",[56]
and Emma Knights of the National Governors' Association suggested
that subject knowledge was part of that: "when it comes to
A-level, parents would want somebody with a good degree teaching
their children, but [for] nursery provision, it would be very
different."[57]

39. We acknowledge that the Government's policy of
raising the academic threshold for entry to teacher training may
give a boost to the status of the profession, as evidenced abroad.
We welcome the Government's
bursary scheme, trust that it will attract more people to consider
the profession, and acknowledge the need to skew incentives towards
subjects in which it is difficult to recruit. However, we caution
that this alone will not do the job. Whilst bursaries will help
to attract people with strong academic records, greater effort
is also needed to identify which subset of these also possess
the additional personal qualities that will make them well-suited
to teaching. This is a key theme of this report that we will
return to later.

40. We do, however,
question the use of degree class as the determinant of bursary
eligibility for primary school teachers. For
this phase of education, a redesign of the criteria towards breadth
of knowledge (at GCSE and A Level) may be more appropriate. Again,
this of course needs to be complemented by a thorough testing
of suitability as a teacher, as part of the course admissions
process.

CONCLUSION

41. Evidence is clear that outstanding teachers at
all phases can have a profound positive impact on pupils' performance,
which in turn leads to better outcomes in further education, pay,
wellbeing, and for society at large. Similarly, the negative impact
of the teachers who add the least value to their pupils is very
significant. Having weak teachers in the classroom is, therefore,
detrimental not just to pupils' achievement that academic year
but to their, and hence the country's, future prospects.

42. However, as discussed above, there is no clear
formula for an 'outstanding' teacher and, although good subject
knowledge, overall academic ability and a range of personal and
inter-personal skills are vital, the evidence is similarly clear
that no one factor (including degree class) correlates to performance
in the classroom and thus to impact on pupil performance. We
have been surprised by the lack of research into the qualities
found to make for effective teaching, including any potential
link between degree class and performance. Overall, the research
base in both directions is fairly scant and could usefully be
replenished with new methodologically-sound research looking at
UK teachers and schools, both primary and secondary, which we
recommend that the Government commission with some urgency.